Carolhathaway - Yes. I saw part of the show on YouTube yesterday and went to PAN's link this afternoon to watch the whole thing. IMO the best part was Maher's comments at the end of the show.

PAN - The two articles you posted were very interesting but not surprising. Destabilizing another country's government is not new, just not usually done so blatantly or (in our case) not to a world power.

That Trump has had business ties to Russia for years is also no surprise - it's well documented. Apparently his son has inherited his father's talent for lying.

Donna,the Turkish citizens who live in Germany, go to their next consulate in Germany to vote. The next consulate for those who live in my region would have to go to the capitol of our federal state, about 50 miles away.

carol, sorry for the confusion. I posted the original link of Maher's intro of his Friday show. My link wasn't good so PAN posted the correct link. But neither one of us posted the link for the whole show ... just the first six minutes. Maher interviews Milo during this show. YouTube should have the whole show available for viewing. If you can't find it I can try to find the right link so you can view it.

Thanks for clarifying, Donna and Lizzy!I just watched 'The New Role: The Magic R' and was just fascinated by Maher's monologue. When I watched the clip with Milo (I had never heard of him before), I have to say that he spoke just too fast for me, I wasn't able to understand everything he said.

German soldiers who are in Lithuania for the NATO, were accused of having raped a young Lithuanian Amman. This IS fake news, and who do you think, forced / wrote this story?Who doesn't want the NATO being in a Russia neighboring country? Any guessings?

Trump talked in Florida about attacks in Europe and then said: "Sweden took so many refugees, and now they've got problems they could not have imagined. Just look at what happened in Sweden last night!"Now everybody in Sweden is asking what happened in their country last night. A motorway was closed due to a snowstorm, the police arrested somebody who had driven a car while he was drunk. No attack, no crime, everybody,'s asking what the f* Trump was talking about. Maybe something like the 'Bowling Green Massacre'...

annemarie - It just occurred to me that he's our perfect protection from ISIS. As long as he's destroying our country from the inside, all they have to do is watch and wait. They're probably laughing their asses off at him doing their work for them.

John McCain did a good thing yesterday by pushing back on Trump's attack on the press. He said dictators "get started by suppressing free press." He also said "If you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press."I don't agree with McCain on many policy issues but I applaud him for standing up strongly against what Trump is doing by delegitimizing American journalists.

LizzyNY wrote:annemarie - It just occurred to me that he's our perfect protection from ISIS. As long as he's destroying our country from the inside, all they have to do is watch and wait. They're probably laughing their asses off at him doing their work for them.

Lizzy your comments are so perceptive. I've thought that this man is doing more harm to our country than ISIS could do in an actual attack within our country. Trump is slowly trying to chip away at the rule of law, our democracy and our humanity. He won't succeed but he is doing damage in the short term. It is sad that many people don't see him as far more dangerous than any terror attack we could incur.

Donnamarie wrote:John McCain did a good thing yesterday by pushing back on Trump's attack on the press. He said dictators "get started by suppressing free press." He also said "If you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press."I don't agree with McCain on many policy issues but I applaud him for standing up strongly against what Trump is doing by delegitimizing American journalists.

Donna,one thought just came to my mind:I've never liked McCain, many of his ideas were always too conservative for me (especially compared with Obama's politics and way to handle things.But compared to Trump, I suddenly start to agree with him - especially with his critics on Trump. (Which, of course, led me to the question: "Why the f*, didn't he and other political heavyweights prevent the GOP to nominate him BFORE?).

But I sometimes have the impression that somebody who seemed to have radical ideas, suddenly seems to be quite moderate because somebody else has a far more radical point of view. So this- previous radical - opinion now seems to balanced.

carol, absolutely agree. Like I said I have never been a fan of McCain. He is way too conservative for me and very much a hawk on military matters. But yes he seems far more appealing, and sane,when you look at the alternative. I feel my bar for acceptable political opinion has been lowered just a bit.

Here is John Oliver's take on Trump's lies vs the truth ....

Might want to watch with a stiff drink in hand. It's just over 20 minutes

I realized how my mind changed about German politics:We have a socialistic party which is a follow-up of a follow-up of the socialistic/ communist party in the former GDR (former East Germany), part of the politicians are still from that era, and some of them defended the building of the wall to West Germany and the separation of families, even shooting refugees who wanted to leave the country, as necessary to stop a brain-drain. Many of them were suspicious or sometimes even known to have spied their own family or neighborhood to the Stasi (the country's intern secret service) and destroyed families and careers. I could never stand them, although some of them have quite good ideas about improving the living conditions, but some had also really radical ideas about nationalizing companies etc. (which hadn't worked in communistic countries).And then the right-wing AfD ('Alternative for Germany) came along with ideas- Well, you know them since you have them in the States as well, trying to re-establish Nazi vocabulary, shooting refugees who try to come to Germany, burning refugees homes etc. try to build hate against' the establishment'. And all of a sudden, the socialists didn't seem so radical to me anymore...

Carolhathaway - It's all relative, isn't it? I think the question becomes"What are we willing to accept?". Do we abandon our beliefs to accept the lesser of two evils or do we stand rock-solid on our beliefs? I wonder if many Republicans still feel that Trump is the lesser of two evils when he's compared to Hilary.

There are many who are criticising those in Congress who are fighting Trump. They want them to stop resisting and get on with the business of government - which to them means implementing Trump's agenda (if anyone actually knows what it is).

Since what he has said so far about what he wants to do will damage our country for years to come, people of conscience in government (and out) are obstructing his efforts wherever they can. Their efforts have not been hugely successful but just the fact that they are not giving up is reassuring. They are keeping the pressure on Congress to hold the administration accountable and making Congress aware that it has responsibilities outside party politics. It seems to be having some effect. Baby steps.

What Im hearing right now is that Democrats in Congress will work with Republicans to pass legislation that they can support and will be beneficial to our country. An infrastructure bill that is not supported by private entities, a refurbished Affordable Care Act, and a revised tax plan that benefits ordinary people, not major corporations. Anything less I don't think the Democrats will support. They are going to play hardball as much as they can but they don't have the majority in either chamber to get their way. They will have to work with some moderate Republicans to get anything they support passed in Congress. In the end the Democrats may end up looking as bad as the Republicans did during the Obama years by obstructing every piece of legislation. But I'm not sure if they feel they have much choice. They have to hope they can win some seats back in the 2018 midterm elections.

And as much as our own lifes change, as much change our surrounding and the influences. In Germany we've seen for years that our political parties and their programmes have assimilated. We have a grand coalition at the moment which means that the opposition is quite weak and doesn't have much influence. Our last social democratic government weakened the rights of the workers and lowered their unemployment benefit, made it also easier for companies to hire temporary and contract workers. And they were surprised that they weren't reelected (the social democrats always were the party for the workers). At the same time the conservatives decided to shut down all nuclear power stations after Fukushima, and Angela Merkel spoke out for refugees to come to Germany - both not traditional issues for conservatives. We also have the exception that the conservatives (CDU candidate in all our federal states - except of one where a sister party (CSU) always is in charge (Bavaria), and they are way more conservative than the other conservatives. But they always participate in governing and usually entertain us with crazy ideas.

So the 'barriers' between the parties blurred, and traditional voters were confused what to vote for. I've seen an interview with one of our conservative politicians who said that his opinions haven't changed but his party's politics has.

So the question is if you stay with the party of your choice, no matter how politics change, how flexible you are...

And that's why the extremists benefit from.If you ask them "When was America great?" (or Britain), most of them can't name it, but they have the feeling that their lives were better a long time ago. Don't we all glorify the past? When summers were sunnier, winters had snow for months, moms didn't work, we always had enough of everything?I'm 47, and I hardly remember'better seasons'. Most mothers didn't work - mostly because there weren't any jobs for them, their education and qualification wasn't as good as mens' ("She's going to marry, have kids and stay home anyway, so there's no need to put as much effort in her learning as in her brother's"). Which led to dependency on their husbands, no matter how they were treated. And since schools only opened in the mornings, it was difficult to organize. My mother started working in a supermarket when she was 45, and often said that that was her best decision ever.IMO the desire for the past is a sort of romantization in many ways, certainly things were better, others were worse.

Carolhathaway - You're right. Almost all of us see the past through rose colored glasses. Everything was better when we were kids - mostly because we were kids. Most of us had few real responsibilities and were often sheltered from the evils of the world by our families. Being a grown-up is hard.

That politician who said he hadn't changed, but his party had probably speaks for most of the world. All the things we knew and depended on are changing. It's unsettling and in some instances, frightening. Like standing on a beach and the sand suddenly shifting beneath your feet.

LizzyNY wrote:Carolhathaway - You're right. Almost all of us see the past through rose colored glasses. Everything was better when we were kids - mostly because we were kids. Most of us had few real responsibilities and were often sheltered from the evils of the world by our families. Being a grown-up is hard.

That politician who said he hadn't changed, but his party had probably speaks for most of the world. All the things we knew and depended on are changing. It's unsettling and in some instances, frightening. Like standing on a beach and the sand suddenly shifting beneath your feet.

@Lizzy...isn't that the same as false memory.....Thats MY problem, sorting fake news from false memory.....

Example; take G. Clooney, as we are here....

Q. Was the "no marriage, no kids" False memory?A. No

QED....so was it Fake News....

Or do both belong to a multi coloured spectrum ?.......No black No white.....

LizzyNY wrote:Carolhathaway - You're right. Almost all of us see the past through rose colored glasses. Everything was better when we were kids - mostly because we were kids. Most of us had few real responsibilities and were often sheltered from the evils of the world by our families. Being a grown-up is hard.

That politician who said he hadn't changed, but his party had probably speaks for most of the world. All the things we knew and depended on are changing. It's unsettling and in some instances, frightening. Like standing on a beach and the sand suddenly shifting beneath your feet.

@Lizzy...isn't that the same as false memory.....Thats MY problem, sorting fake news from false memory.....

Example; take G. Clooney, as we are here....

Q. Was the "no marriage, no kids" False memory?A. No

QED....so was it Fake News....

Or do both belong to a multi coloured spectrum ?.......No black No white.....

It was neither. People can change their minds. Doesn't mean they did not believe it at the time.

What Would He Say wrote:Thats MY problem, sorting fake news from false memory.....

Example; take G. Clooney, as we are here....

Q. Was the "no marriage, no kids" False memory?A. No

QED....so was it Fake News....

Or do both belong to a multi coloured spectrum ?.......No black No white.....

It was neither false memory nor fake news. It was a man changing his mind about how he saw his future. He met someone who meant something to him, who he wanted to keep in his life and simply changed his mind.

WWHS - It isn't a question of fake news or false memories. Everythingchanges (even the way we see things). If it didn't we'd still be living in caves and hunting for our food with spears and rocks.

It is confusing and sometimes scary because, as individuals, we can't control things. That's why we have to work together with like-minded people to try and affect change. Hopefully we have evolved enough that there are more forward thinking people than stick-your-head-in-the-sand reactionaries.

We may not know how things will change, but we can be sure that they will. We can only hope things change for the better.

annemarie - The one good thing to come of this mess, IMO, is that we can see how big a problem we have and how much more needs to be done. I think a lot of people thought we were in really good shape. Now we're finding out that we're not and there's a lot that needs to change.

George Clooney has spoken out to slam President Donald Trump and his chief strategist Steve Bannon as ‘Hollywood elitists’.

The Oscar-winning actor and activist was speaking to French TV show Rencontres de Cinema, when he brought up the ‘hypocrisy’ of the President’s response to Meryl Streep’s criticism of him during her Golden Globes speech.

“When Meryl spoke, everyone on that one side said, ‘well that’s elitist Hollywood speaking’,” said Clooney. “Donald Trump has 22 acting credits in television. He collects $120,000 a year in his Screen Actors Guild pension fund. He is a Hollywood elitist.

“Steve Bannon is a failed film writer and director. That’s the truth. Thats what he’s done. He wrote a Shakespearean rap musical about the LA riots that he couldn’t get made…He made a lot of money off of Seinfeld…He’s elitist Hollywood, I mean, thats the reality.”

Getty ImagesClooney continued of he hopes to see the US hold Trump to account and his “feet to the fire” – adding that the American people “do a lot of dumb things over a period of time, but we’re also pretty good at fixing them.”

“We have a demagogue in the White House,” he said. “We need the fourth estate, which is journalists, to hold his feet to the fire. They didn’t do a very good job during the campaign and they haven’t done a particularly good job yet, but those things will change.”

Meryl Streep recently responded to Trump’s claims that she was ‘the most overrated actress‘.

“I am the most ‘overrated’ and most over-decorated and currently — currently — I am the most over-berated actor… of my generation,” she said.

“If you think people got mad when they thought the government was coming after their guns, wait until they come and try to take away our happiness,” Streep warned. “We’re not going to go back to the bad old days of ignorance and oppression and hiding who we are.

She added: “We owe it to the people who have died for our rights, and who have died before they even got their own.”

Last year, Clooney made headlines when he slammed Trump as a ‘xenophobic fascist‘.

Carol somewhere here someone posted a video I think with Keith Oberman who went through all the lies Trump told before the election. I don't know if you remember. There were about 180 or so. With the 130 post-election lies that's got to be a record. Trump is probably the biggest liar EVER! He must be so proud.

Donna, I remember having watched this video. It just shocked me that since his inaugregation not one single day without a lie had passed- and that there are still people saying: "Every politician is constantly lying so he's no different to others."

I just watched a report on TV that in Frankfort 'about 900 drunken refugees have sexually abused hundreds of women on New Years Eve.' This was reported six weeks later by somebody who owned a pub in a party area of this city. Women were ashamed and tried to live with it, but in the end they couldn't cope with this. The police was really astonished because they had patrolled massively especially in that area that night (due to the incidents in Cologne one year before), and neither had they witnessed anything like that nor had any of the women made a report at a police station or asked for help that night. The many journalists who'd been there hadn't witnessed anything as well, so they tried to find out about it. It occured that the pub owner strongly supports this new right-wing party AFD and had also told them to focus on that incident. An American Trump supporter told the story to our biggest- well, I wouldn't call it a newspaper, it's similar to' The Sun' in Britain - who published it nationwide.

Local journalists who were told to not have done their job, investigated and talked to the pub owner who had to admit that there was just one woman who had complainted about having been sexually abused. Then they found out that this woman wasn't in town that particular night, she even wasn't in Germany. The American refused to comment on it, and so this'newspaper' had to disclaim. Which, of course means that many people believe the story and think that they were muzzled. So the damage is done, my niece had told me that she still reads about it on facebook...

Carolhathaway - You owe me either an aspirin or a good strong drink! I started reading what you posted and now not only am I depressed but I have a headache, too.

Lie after lie after lie.....and we've got four more years to go. Ugh! Does anyone remember the scene where Indiana Jones shoots the guy with the sword? That's what keeps going through my mind every time I think of Trump.

PAN - How about this: They ALL lied! ( Although, at this point I'd trust the Russians over anyone in the Trump administration.)